But for a few, the idea that a story can be told in a completely new method is what entrances them. It’s become an engrossing enough subject that people can now go to college and study the concept in an official capacity. People get into massive debates about the importance of story in games, some…
Code comments pose a number of interesting epistemological challenges. They are ignored by the machine interpreter and readable by humans, but not exactly legible. They are visible only if one is able to view the source code. They are not intended for the end-user, but with the right tools, the end-user might find them. In…
Lessons Learned in Playful Game Design – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education. Similar:Former NFL receiver Antwaan Randle El regrets ever playing football“There’s no correcting it. There’s no he…BusinessIf you like to play with words, good newsI wish there were a secret day between F…CultureHow Mickey Mouse Evades the Public DomainI get my fill…
One of my favorite comments from last year’s communal exploration of the source code for Colossal Cave Adventure. Stephen Ramsay writes: I’m going to call it the “Code on a Grecian Urn” problem. Let me begin by calling attention to Nick Montfort’s wonderfully pithy note at the end of Week 1:”Hm, I don’t know. The…
Portal 2 is essentially a demented series of puzzles – like being stuck inside a physics-based logic problem designed by the Python team; LA Noire is a trad adventure game. Adventure games used to be as close as gaming got to fiction. They started out as interactive text-based shaggy dog stories (a prime example being…
Honestly, this does not sound good. In the short term, it will only be possible to alter the “flavor text” and not the substance. Since the producers ultimately control both the game world and the TV world, and can therefore nerf a gameworld city that e TV plot needs destroyed, or buff a game world…
In a way, Bug Chucker also suffers from the same direction problems most were able to overcome with the original Myst. Experimentation was as vital in that as it is in Bug Chucker and the senselessness of testing is every bit as grating. You’re never sure if what you’re doing is right. End of the day, I look…
The whole “reality is an illusion” idea has been kicked around by everyone from Siddhartha to the existentialists. It is Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom who is most often associated with the idea that we are living in a computer simulation. His premise is based on a series of assumptions: 1). A technological society could eventually…
The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies. The exhibition will feature some of the most influential artists and designers during five eras of game technology,…
Today, I realized I’m not unique in this conundrum: having contributed assets to an interactive project on levels I can’t easily access. I was chatting with a voiceover artist who’d done a fair amount of video game work but, again, wasn’t a good enough gamer to make it to his own cut scenes. He was…
Great analysis of a media-savvy joke embedded into the tutorial of Portal 2. Now, if you’re anything like me, you laughed harder at this moment than nearly any other in Portal 2. Obviously, people with brain damage who jump when asked to speak are funny, so there’s definitely that level of comedy. But there’s also…
Short recalled a brief conversation she had with Chris Crawford at GDC in which he critiqued her and others interactive narrative games. “Youre not giving the player enough of a chance to respond; the game is doing all the talking and the player is doing all of the listening.”Said Short, “I assume what he wanted…
Sports journalism is full of colorful figures of speech, invented by writers who wanted to put a little variety into their writing. When given objective data about the game, a computer program has done a fairly good job of emulating sports lingo. The following story starts out by critiquing a sports news story that some…
The video clip on this page does not match the story, and there does not seem to be any way to post from my blog to the print version of the article. Looks like a silly attempt to control web visitors, in such a way as to prop up ABC’s slice of the dwindling TV…
While I was at home recovering from a brief but dramatic illness, my wife took the kids to an educational event at our local library. When my son (who turned 13 last month) returned, he told this story — another example of his intersection of interest in both history and video games. I asked him to…
A decent introduction, with rich links. Nothing really new, though. The problem, as experts like Ultima creator Richard Garriott and Infocom veteran Steve Meretzky explain in a recent documentary, is that gaming is a relatively young field. Game makers still haven’t mastered their craft the way artists, playwrights and filmmakers have. When compared to more…
A note on the conference room door says the Serious Games SIG will be meeting at the Bedford party. I was actually kind of looking forward to attending the SIG instead of the party. Oh, well. Similar:Why Do People Share Fake News? A Sociotechnical Model of Media EffectsVerrit, like Snopes, Politifact, and a h…CultureThe Skin…
Overheard as people settle in… “Are we ARGing or LARPing?” These are my rough notes, very lightly edited. Looks like 50 or 60 people — a good crowd. Liz Losh and Bonnie Lenore Kyburz are presenting in separate panels elsewhere… I hope somebody’s blogging there. Chair Matt Davis Samantha Blackmon Designing Education: What Video Game…
I’m very interested in this, since I’m hoping to teach “Video Game Culture and Theory” again this January. Atari’s Greatest Hits brings the best of retro gaming to iOS with 100 Classic Atari Games. This suite brings you the hottest Arcade and 2600 titles from Atari. For those who love the classic gaming experience this…
At the Mariott Marquis in Atlanta. A citadel of formed concrete. I’m in a Half Life 2 state of mind. Your browser does not support the video tag Similar:Hero Worship (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 11) Orphaned Boy Idolizes DataRewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-…AmusingMars Curiosity rover sings 'Happy Birthday,' dares Earth to collect royalties One…